Avs adjustments for Game 2 against Wild are limited

Optional skate for the Burgundy and Blue today, and most players opted not to lace up the skates.

By this time of year, players have gotten enough practice and know their team systems pretty well. It’s more about rest between games than expenditure of calories doing rote practice routines. That said, a lot of stuff happens off the ice. Lots of team meetings, lots of video sessions, lots of talk about adjustments from the previous game.

Every team that loses a playoff game says the same stuff the next day, for the most part. The Wild talked a lot today about the need to adjust this and the need to adjust that, and when that happens, all will be well. But the Avs also spent a lot of time today talking about the need for adjustments.

Obviously, Avs players liked the result in Game 1, but nobody was too happy with how they played. The vibe I got in the room was “We got away with one” in Game 1, and that they’ll need to be a lot better going forward to actually win this series.

You can only adjust so much, though. In hockey, you are what you are, for the most part. Thing is, the Avs are normally a better team than they showed in Game 1. Injuries change the equation with who you are as a team, and the Avs definitely are a different team without Matt Duchene and John Mitchell. Those are two of the top three centers. It matters, a lot, that they are out of the lineup.

The Avs won only 45 percent of the faceoffs in Game 1, for instance. Put Duchene and Mitchell in there, and they are probably closer to their season average of close to 50 percent. Duchene and Mitchell allow guys like Marc-Andre Cliche and Brad Malone and Cody McLeod and Patrick Bordeleau and, well, just about everyone else, to play in their normal roles.

Unfortunately for the Avs, I don’t get any sense that Duchene and Mitchell will be available before Games 4 or 5, at the earliest. Injury information is scarce this time of year, of course, but the fact that Duchene isn’t even skating yet can’t be considered a good thing. He Tweeted shortly after his knee injury that he hoped to be back for Game 1 of the playoffs, but that didn’t happen and there isn’t the slightest indication when he’ll be back on skates.

As for Mitchell, some people I talked to today said he is feeling “OK,” but obviously not OK enough to lace up his skates either.

The bottom line: The Avs are just going to have to keep finding a way to do it without those two guys in the short term. A better game from the defense and goalie Semyon Varlamov will help. I thought Varly looked shaky in Game 1, but won’t rip him too much because I also thought many guys in front of him (P.A. Parenteau, Jan Hejda, Erik Johnson — for the first two periods anyway — the entire fourth line, Andre Benoit, Nick Holden) looked shaky.

The Wild has its issues too. Mike Yeo said with a straight face that he had “no problem” with Ilya Bryzgalov’s performance in Game 1, but anyone with two working eyes could see that there were problems with the aging Breezer. Yeo is trying to portray public confidence in the enigmatic Russian, but behind the scenes, everyone with the Wild is worried that he’s their No. 1 goalie right now.

Not that Breezer took the loss all that hard in Game 1 it didn’t seem like. About 15 minutes after Game 1, I walked right past Breezer, smiling and talking with Paul Theofanous — the agent for Varlamov. Bryzgalov’s own agent is veteran Ritch Winter.

Maybe that is the right way to be after a playoff loss. Maybe Breezer’s carefree attitude will be the tonic for success after a tough loss. They say to always be positive after a playoff loss. In that case, Breezer is right on point.

I didn’t think Bryzgalov looked so bad, but the overtime winner definitely had no business going in.

Chris DeMott

I agree. Both goalies had one goal that they might have wanted back. It’s funny how even the media types that are around the game all the time will still automatically go to the term “shaky” if a keeper lets four goals in. Bryz had no chance on Landy’s first goal, little chance on Mcginn’s second chance opportunity, pretty much no chance on ROR’s bomb and almost got Stastny’s close in perfect bad-angle rebound shot over his glove. Yes, he was sloppy and didn’t square up and squeeze the arm on Stats’ OT goal, but that was pretty much the only “soft” one. I thought the same was pretty much true for Varlamov. He had little chance on the first goal which was a lucky bounce as Varly and the D-man both poke checked the Parise chance which then goes straight across the goal mouth and on to a Minnesota stick. He had zero chance on the second goal which changed direction on a stick shaft and a leg. He would have wanted the third goal back as he missed his poke check (but that was still on a clean break away) and the fourth goal would have been an amazing save had he made it as it was a hard, close in, one timer just over his glove. This game was an excellent example of why Varlamov should, but probably won’t, win the Vezina. Because, statistic’s can be misleading and a goalies performance is rarely accurately reported in the short version of a game story.

Smell the Glove

I didn’t think Varlamov looked bad but I didn’t think he looked like Varlamov. He wasn’t as aggressive to challenge the shooters and he seemed to be a bit amped up out there (which is a nice way to say spastic.) Although it wasn’t just Varly, I think the same could have been said about most of the players for most of the game on either team for game 1.

Seems like game 2 will be a little more settled, or at least I’m betting they’ll settle in sooner.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.